Ache For You
by upticks
Summary: B/B OneShot. It's 2o'clock in the morning, rain is falling and the streets are empty. All except for one extremely inebriated Seeley Booth.


**Ache For You**

_In the rain,  
I'm walking slowly,  
There's a light in your apartment,  
I don't know why,  
I ache for you._

It's two o clock in the morning in Washington D.C on a Wednesday night, and fat drops are falling from the sky. The streets are abandoned, still, silent and lifeless apart from reckless teenagers wanting their own slice of life, the unfortunate that call the sidewalk home, and an extremely inebriated Seeley Booth.

He slowly places one foot in front of the other, struggling to walk in a straight line, the many beers he's consumed sloshing around in his belly and making him feel queasy. He left the main pungent smell of the alcoholic beverage back hanging in the stale air inside his car, a few blocks back, when a sound that somewhat resembled a cat being strangled issued from the lips of the motor.

He had stepped out into the rain, feeling somewhat dizzy and his mind was numb, like the period between being off-your-face drunk and having the worst hangover of your life, and twenty minutes into a walk to the nearest gas station, that feeling was continuing.

His clothes are totally soaked, wet baggy jeans clinging to his legs, a casual t-shirt he had thrown on before heading out to the bar to quell his misgivings drenched through, water sticking to every little strand of his hair. If there was more light in the suburban area than the occasional streetlight and the dim shining of the half-moon, hid behind numerous large, menacing clouds filled with rain, the water would have glistened in his short brown locks.

He runs his fingers through it, shivering as the water transferred from his hair to his hand gets wiped on his t-shirt; fat lot of good that'll do. He licks his lips, trying to get rid of the taste of the pungent beer that's wafted up his nose and hasn't left, screwing with the logistics of his intoxicated mind; he finds it unable to think properly, and all he can do is keep walking in the direction he's heading, until daylight, or a hangover hits. Whichever comes first.

Why the fuck did he have to go to the bar in the first place? What demon could possibly be so bad he would be forced to go reconcile with his old friend spirits, when he knew the highs were followed by rock-bottom lows?

The thought worms itself to the front of his mind, and it hits him all over again, and he feels like turning right back to that bar. Temperance Brennan, his partner of almost two years. The way he says it sounds like a romantic implication, and part of him wishes it was.

And that was his problem. That beautiful, headstrong, feisty woman who could always stand up for herself, who belonged to a completely different world than he did, had made her way into his heart, slowly but surely. He had stood over death with her, protected her, and he could fall back on their friendship when things had gotten too hard for him to deal.

But that feeling; that raw passion he had felt up on the altar when Hodgins and Angela had ran away from their wedding; that was when he knew. Knew that she meant more than she should mean. And that he wished that he was up there, on that altar, with her, for real.

And she'd avoided him ever since; he had counted the days, the phonecalls she had never returned, and had given up some point along the way. He refused to be ruled by someone like this, even though she wasn't aware of the control that she wielded.

A short, sharp burst of pain in his temples cut through all thoughts, and his hands immediately shot up to rub the area. He was really quite cold now, and felt like doing nothing more than slumping against the next signpost he saw and just waiting there till the sun rose up from the skyline and people and their cars started traversing the streets.

It became an intense effort to keep plodding along, and he eventually got to an intersection that seemed vaguely familiar, bordered by rows of copycat apartment buildings and an agricultural strip. All of the lights in the building closest to him are off, except one on the floor... second from the top, he thinks. But everything's blurry and appears to be moving; he wouldn't bet on it.

A bright, fluorescing light that shines yellow is lighting up the apartment, which none of is visible. He swears that he remembers this place somehow; that he's been here before. If only he could read a signpost or something... But it's dark and the streetlights are of no help to a drunk man who's just walked many many blocks and his memory is filled with jagged spears called hangover advancing and thoughts of _her_.

He's stopped walking altogether now, and the darkness is swirling, all focussing on one point in his vision; the only window with a light on in the whole street. And all of a sudden a figure appears, a lithe, curvaceous woman, pictured in shadows, from what he can make out.

And then, one thought registers in his mind; a swear word. He knows where he is, and he knows who's window that is, who's apartment, and who the figure is. It's Brennan. And he wants to do nothing more than walk over to that building, take the elevator up, and knock on her door.

But he won't.


End file.
